Amazon May Deliver Goods With Self-Driving Vehicles in the Future

Google, Apple, and Uber are just some of the prominent tech companies that are working with driverless cars right now. And it looks like Amazon.com is also embracing the trend, albeit in a completely different way.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Amazon has formed a team that is examining the potential uses for autonomous cars in its business operations. The team was created more than a year ago and has consisted of about a dozen employees, the report says, citing unnamed sources briefed on the matter. Instead of creating its own autonomous vehicles, the team is simply thinking of ways these cars can be of use to Amazon in the future.

It’s likely that Amazon sees the vehicles as a solution for delivering packages more efficiently, especially given the company’s recent push to deliver more of its own goods itself. According to the report, Amazon could use autonomous trucks, forklifts, and even drones to help bring goods to people more quickly and on shorter notice. It’s not such a new idea: Ford recently laid out a radical vision for a drone-launching van that can deliver packages to consumers in high-rise buildings. Meanwhile, companies including Volvo and Otto have already conducted tests on autonomous big rigs.

The program is apparently still in the early stages, and unsurprisingly, Amazon remains tight-lipped on the matter. But it makes sense that a variety of companies would start thinking of ways to leverage such new technologies, although it could be a long time before we see this plan come to fruition.